Diet Company Uses Plus-Size Blogger's Bikini Shot Without Permission

Rachele Cateyes of Milwaukie, Oregon, whose popular blog Nearsighted Owl tackles issues of body acceptance and plus-size pride, was stunned to discover that an image of her in a bikini was used without permission as the "before" image on the website of a diet company called Venus Factor, according to KGW.

Cateyes tried to call the company, and upon receiving no response, sent them a Facebook message that demanded they remove her photo from the site. The company wrote back an evasive message — "We have no control over it. You need to contact the people who specifically put this on his website" — and did not remove the photo. Cateyes and her followers are spreading the news via social media and barraging Venus Factor with emails.

When Cateyes' husband snapped the bikini photo, she posted it to her blog in order to show followers that nobody should be ashamed of their size, which is why this is a particularly frustrating misuse of her image, she says: "[They're] using me to represent basically, 'This is what you don't want to look like, don't be like her, her body's bad.'"